Sunday, August 23, 2015

This is not a hoax: Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of cynical hucksterism

From Akis Gavrielides'* "Was Tsipras ultimately a 'populist' who 'reneged on his promises'?"

[...]

As I have already argued in the past, it is time we throw the concepts of promise and acceptance, that is, the concept of a contract, to the garbage bin as tools for the understanding of politics. These are concepts of moral(istic) and legal descent, that don't help us understand the motion of the multitude. It is also time to get rid of an idea with a long past, especially in the discourse of the Left and of social movements: the concept of a demand, and the conception of political discourse as a "plan" that "materializes." Politics is elsewhere; politics doesn't mean that some sovereign subjects meet and delegate to some other, "even more sovereign" subject, the "materialization" or the "satisfaction" of some of their demands [...] This is the scenario of classic bourgeois political philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries, based on the model of the market and of contracts.

[...] This schema is desperately inadequate. It can account only for normality, normalcy, accountability -- that is  to say, non politics. Politics is not communication; or at least, it is not, and it is not desirable or possible that it becomes, communication based on rules where all messages are transparent, regulated and distortion-free. Politics is that which escapes, that which is not planned. It is noise, the parasite. What is politically interesting is that which deconstructs, not that which institutes palliative equivalences.


Perhaps, someone might say: OK, but this is all "theoretical". Even if it is correct, it doesn't cancel out the fact that SYRIZA was elected proclaiming to be against austerity, was voted for it, but we still have austerity. Isn't this inconsistency? And isn't there a danger that SYRIZA's voters will think "everyone is the same" and thus be led to resignation, disappointment, demobilization?

My response to this is the following: The question of whether a party or a politician "kept their promises" or "deceived the people" is a question posed by the political system, not by the multitude.

[...]

But from my perspective, this question is not really important. For me, what is crucial is that the specific "promise" circulated, was subjected to the judgment of citizens and was approved. Even if it did not "materialize", its approval was not futile. Discourse creates results not only when it is "applied", but also when it is simply said.

The elections, the referendum and their results were worth their while, whatever followed them. What follows depends on an infinity of factors which are unpredictable and cannot be controlled fully by anyone, not even by the "sovereign". Besides, anyway, these processes posited in public discourse a political desire that did not exist anywhere before; it became known that this political desire exists, and is indeed a majority one. [...] No one can now pretend not to know this.

[...]

Was this enough?

Even this question is beside the point. To answer it, we would have to define clearly a threshold, a norm on the basis of which the adequate and the inadequate could be judged. 

[...]

* The author works as a translator in Brussels, Belgium. He publishes in SYRIZA's "Avgi" and in John Milios' periodical, "Theseis."

11 comments:

  1. Thank you for the time and the effort you devoted to my post.
    One small pragmatic correction:
    The author, as far as he can remember, has hardly ever published anything in "Avgi".
    As for "Theseis", he has indeed published a lot in the past there, but this was mainly during the 90s. The use or the present tense today is not justified.

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    1. You may want to ask the following to correct your bio:

      http://www.biblionet.gr/author/30963/Άκης_Γαβριηλίδης

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  2. Discourse creates results not only when it is "applied", but also when it is simply said.

    Excellent! Let SYRIZA just say, then; let them promise everything to everybody, as long as this kind of "discourse creates results". Of course, the author does not bother to elaborate on what kind of "results" are "created", let alone who benefit of them. So cheap...

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    1. Dear gdmn1973.
      There is absolutely nothing "cheap", nor anything unheard of, in affirming that discourse produces results. On the contrary, it is commonplace in the humanities since decades, starting from Searle's classic "How to do things with words". Of course other people have written about this before and after.
      This performativity is certainly not a privilege of SYRIZA's. It is a characteristic of every human discourse. As for the results created, they are literally infinite, and unpredictable; they can be of any kind whatsoever, and they usually are. They are not of any one kind. For example, the fact that you uploaded a comment here has produced results, and it may produce more in the future, which we don't know yet.

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    2. Could you explain how your jetissoning of any normativity or norm from an understanding of the "circulation of desire" amidst the multitude is different from fascism?

      More specifically, why anything would change if the "peformativity" of which you speak had to do with eliciting the desire to attack migrants or communists? Why the KKK or the NSDAP would be excluded from what you see as the essence of the political value of SYRIZA?

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    3. On a related issue, since "promises" and "contracts" are antiquated bourgeois notions to be thrown in the garbage, why is your article any different from a defense of any banana republic huckster, say those we saw in Eastern Europe, who got elected in order to steal and destroy the lives of their voters?

      Were the East Europeans forced to migration and prostitution only getting what they "desired"? Did they "like" it?

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    4. Thirdly and more pragmatically, if your "theory" had a gram of reliability, why is everyone jumping the SYRIZA boat like rats on a sinking ship?

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    5. a) No, I cannot prove how what I say "is different from fascism"!
      Can you?
      When an accusation is made, it is up to the prosecutor to prove it, not up to the defendant to prove it wrong.
      b) Absolutely nothing would change in terms of performativity if one spoke about a desire to attack communists. Only, the desire would be totally different as to its content. But performativity is not about contents. Searle's book is entitled "How to do things with words". It is not called "How to do GOOD things with words". The things one can do, performartively or not, can be of many kinds, as I already pointed out in my previous comment.
      And one last remark: I never spoke of any "essence of the political value of SYRIZA".

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    6. a) My allegation is that there is nothing that differentiates your "theory" from a valorization of fascist irrationalism. You say you can't prove why it isn't. I thought so.

      b) I must remind you that How to do things with words is by J.L Austin and not by Searle. Thank you for verifying my second point on the kind of politics you advocate.

      c) Your article is a clear and transparent defense of SYRIZA and of every SYRIZA and I don't see any answer to my pragmatic question of why everyone is jumping your performative boat like rats if things were as you say.

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  3. I think there is a serious misunderstanding here.
    Performativity, in my text, (or anywhere else), is not something "good" or "preferable". Performativity is just a function of discourse. Sometimes it is there, sometimes not. It is not a permanent attribute of some subjects, political or otherwise. There are no ... "performative boats" as opposed to other boats which are not performative.
    This 2-pages long post is not a 'theory'. It is just an interpretation about why a specific political evolution took place rather than others. SYRIZA is of course the topic of this post, but it is not the object of any "advocacy". Nowhere do I say that performativity is a reason or a guarantee for success. Besides, as far as I know, most SYRIZA people are indifferent or clearly hostile as much as anybody else vis a vis this line of interpretation.
    This is neither good nor bad. Interpretations may be accurate or not, irrespective of what political actors think -or don't think- about them. Political ideas and thoughts are public, so anybody can use or abuse them. And this indeed has been the case: practically all political ideas have been used by politicians from practically any political tendency in history. This does not necessarily prove the ideas right or wrong.

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    1. Misunderstanding? The intentions of your text and the means used to cover them up are perfectly clear and and not quite unprecedented.

      https://oliviergoetgeluck.wordpress.com/48laws/

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